Friday, February 21, 2014

This painting is a song of the rainforest. It is a prayer for a hymn, an epiphany, a sonorous
parable to light the way in the wet dark.
A song with a subtle frequency heard only by certain Caribbean crickets
and the many supernatural ears of the Holy Spirit.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

I've been thinking about stories lately and the ways we are so used to reading them and relating them to other people. We've developed conventions about storytelling but I believe some of the best stories come to us in the language of dreams where the beginning is at the center and the end is in the middle of the beginning...

"The Aboriginal University of Uncivilized Storytelling"
by Tiffany Osedra Miller
Copyright 2010
all rights reserved.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

I painted "The Servants of Salome" with acrylic paint, india ink and gesso onto a cotton canvas sheet glued to a piece of (approximately 6" x 6") watercolor paper. This painting features rich copper colors with hints of gold.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

The afterlife I’ve learned about and wondered about as a young black girl growing up in the church is sometimes overshadowed by the afterlife I believe I visit in my dreams. A place populated with familiar yet unfamiliar landscapes, departed ancestors and strangely shaped beings. Where do reality, history, heritage, belief, truth and imagination converge?

Saturday, August 28, 2010

This painting combines my 1980’s childhood and teenage memories of a violent, gritty, gaudy and decadent Times Square in New York with my “grown-up” reflections on the so-called underworld of sex, outcasts, masquerade, stereotypes and exploitation.

Process:

I started this painting with no set intention and and completed a draft of it which you can see below. I left it in this state for awhile thinking I had finished it, though I felt unsatisfied. I contemplated this painting for a few days and wrote about it until, to my surprise, the New York Times Square imagery opened up and I began to weave it into the overall work. As with most of my work, I created this painting with acrylic paint and india ink.

On writing about a painting I've created:

A lot of the writing I do for a painting, in order to understand it more deeply, comes in the form of stream of consciousness and poetry. This approach works very well for me because much of my work comes out of dreams and visions I've had or are currently experiencing. A lot of what I write seems very disconnected from what I've actually created but after ahwile it begins to come together and feel more meaningful to me. It is not always easy to create something from an unconscious place and then try to make sense of it. I've wrestled with this for awhile and decided that it's best to experience what I've created, enter into it and then try to integrate it into a framework that eventually I can accept.

On writing about this particular painting, "The Show"

There is a particular kind of corrupt innocence with which I look at the world which makes paintings like this one fairly cathartic to me. I am facinated by masks, puppets and puppeteers and look back on those waning days of the "real" Times Square with a disturbing nostalgia for the overwhelming presence of peep shows, drug dealers, addicts, arcades, homeless people, filthy movie theaters and prostitutes. Who wasn't a puppet back then? Who's not a puppet right now? And why would anyone actually miss those days in New York and long for them again? What's so wonderful about prostitution, poverty, sex addiction and drug addiction? I guess that depends on who you ask. In truth, although this city took great strides to hide these "undesirables" they still exist - in us and among us. That's why so many people come from around the world to catch just one whiff of what Times Square was before Disney did to it what it did to Grimm's Fairy Tales. Well, for me those days in New York haven't gone away they've simply been driven deeper underground. Times Square was to many people what the internet is now. But to think that the Times Square of today as merely just a wonderful, safe and clean place for tourists with their children to visit and enjoy amuses me because the notion is merely another affectation and mask. [Whew! There goes my native New Yorker cynicism again. At least I'm smiling :) ]

About Me

I am a Jantiguan-American (Jamaican and Antiguan parents) from the Bronx. On this blog, Revolutionary Picture Book, I showcase and promote my experimental literary and visual art. Enjoy! Email me at bassacards(at)yahoo.com.

BASSA BASSA ARTS

“BASSA BASSA” is something my Mother would often say when someone asked her how she was doing. It’s a fairly common phrase in the Caribbean island of Antigua, where my Mother was born and raised. I dedicate my art to her memory.

This Blog is Dedicated to the Memory of My Dear, Sweet Mother

1933-2008

Read the online graphic novel, "Goatwater"

where carnival always begins again the moment that carnival ends

Also Read, Goatwaterstrip:

a black and white spin-off of Goatwater, where I experiment with cartoon panels and captions

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Welcome to the Cupcake World! As you enter into this carnival of images and words, drop all of your illusions and learn to wear “other” masks. Meet performers, mourners, lovers, revelers, neighbors, spirits, outcasts and holy rollers - and celebrate the spirit of tragedy and loss with humor, bacchanal, transformation and revolution. Unless otherwise indicated, all words and images are the original creations of the author of this blog, Tiffany Osedra Miller.

WHATSA MATTER

Never Seen a Naked Girl holding a badly drawn gun before? You must not be from New York!

THE REVOLUTION WILL BE CARNIVALISED

So hurry up and stockpile your masks!

"Revolution My Ass, Pour Me Some Rum"

Mathilda "Tiddy" Rockchester

Though Forever a Wild Child

ALWAYS A WOMAN.

"You should not take part in the joys if you do not take part in the sorrows."